]]>Skype has adopted Google’s open source video codec VP8 as its default solution for video conferencing, according to a blog post from Google Product Manager John Luther. The new Skype for Windows client 5.5 will automatically use VP8 both for one-on-one and group video calls as long as other participants are using the same version.

The codec has also been targeted by patent pool entity MPEG LA, which is threatening to form a patent pool for VP8. Google has maintained that companies adopting WebM or VP8 have nothing to fear, and the fact that a company that’s being acquired by Microsoft is willing to put its eggs in the open codec basket definitely should quell some fears and possibly encourage other video sites as well as video conferencing providers to switch to embrace the format. One should note, however, that Microsoft has so far shied away from adopting WebM for its Internet Explorer browser.

]]>MPEG LA could be one step closer to forming a patent pool to use against Google’s WebM open-source video format. The H.264 licensing group revealed in an email interview with Streaming Media that it has identified 12 companies with patents that it claims are essential to the WebM standard, which could be used in a legal battle designed to thwart adoption of the competing video format.

MPEG LA’s plans to establish a patent pool to be used against WebM are nothing new, as the latest statements follow previous threats by the licensing group. (See here and here.) But this is the first time the group has given a hint that it actually has some patent holders on board to back those threats.

First, despite several similar warnings against [Ogg] Theora, MPEG LA has never acted to enforce its patents against that open-source codec. But Theora has been around since 2000, and as such one could argue that as a result, MPEG LA would have a difficult time enforcing the patents that it supposedly infringes on. But VP8 is more or less brand-spanking new, and therefore fair game.

Second, Google has a lot more resources than Xiph.org — the group that controls Theora — does, and won’t be going down without a fight. It spent more than $120 million to purchase On2 and its technology, and wouldn’t have done so if it weren’t committed to making VP8 open source. Not only that, but the search giant said it’s done its due diligence and is confident that VP8 doesn’t infringe on others’ patents.

Google seems to be readying its own defense against MPEG LA’s patent pool, as it has gotten such companies as LG Electronics and Cisco to provide some backing through the WebM Community Cross-License. At the same time, just the threat of patent litigation against those who choose to adopt the WebM format might be enough to keep some publishers and developers away.

All of that said, all this saber-rattling might not even matter: Despite Google’s best efforts to push adoption for WebM, the format has gotten very little takeup from other publishers or developers. Recent research from MeFeedia found that nearly 70 percent of all videos it indexed were encoded with H.264, compared with just 2 percent of those encoded in WebM.

]]>Google is announcing a new community cross-licensing initiative for its WebM open source video format this morning, which includes backing from major CE makers like Samsung, LG Electronics and Cisco. Google open-sourced WebM about a year ago, hoping to establish an open and royalty-free video format for the web that could eventually replace today’s de facto web video standard, H.264. The cross-licensing initiative is meant to ensure that companies interested in using WebM aren’t scared off by threats of patent litigation.

The whole cross-licensing approach is a little bit curious. Here’s how it works: Google still believes it holds all the rights related to the VP8 video codec that’s at the core of WebM. However, if it turned out that some of WebM’s technology was covered by a patent held by Cisco for example, Cisco would automatically grant a royalty-free license for this technology to all of the other participants of the initiative. Mike Jazayeri, director of product management at Google for WebM, was quick to point out during a conversation last week that this “doesn’t imply that any of these companies have licenses” related to the format. But you know, just in case…

This isn’t the first time big companies band together like this to use cross-licensing to protect themselves against open source-related patent litigation. The Open Invention Network, whose members include IBM, Sony and Red Hat, uses a comparable approach to issue royalty-free licenses of Linux-related patents.

That Google now establishes a similar alliance for WebM shows how serious patent-related issues are for the format. Apple CEO Steve Jobs threatened early on to attack open video codecs, and H.264 patent pool administrator MPEG LA finally came out of the woodwork in February and issued a call for patents to form a WebM patent pool. A patent pool like this it could eventually be used to go after anyone embracing WebM, including the companies that just joined the cross-licensing initiative. Jazayeri tried to downplay this development, saying that the cross-licensing initiative was well in the works when MPEG LA made its announcement. “They have raised some vague claims and really haven’t back that up,” he said about the MPEG LA.

Still, all the saber-rattling by Apple, MPEG LA and others may have dissuaded some from using WebM. Jazayeri said the project was happy about the format’s current adoption rate, but admitted that “there have been some questions raised” about possible legal implications of using the format.

One of the companies that has officially been on the sidelines is Microsoft. Redmond initially stated that it wasn’t going to support WebM due to legal concerns, but quickly softened its stance by saying that Internet Explorer users would be able to play content encoded with the format if they installed a third-party codec. Google has since published a plug-in that makes it possible to play WebM content in IE 9, and Jazayeri told me that Microsoft wasn’t just all talk about enabling support for the codec. “Their engineers and our engineers worked closely together,” he said.

Maybe that’s the biggest part of today’s announcement: It shows a growing commitment between big companies like LG and Samsung to take a chance on WebM. It will still take some time before we’ll actually see the codec becoming part of their products, but Jazayeri said that he expects consumer hardware capable of WebM encoding and decoding in U.S. shelves by the end of this or early next year.

]]>YouTube is encoding all new uploads in Google’s WebM open-source video format, the site announced Tuesday on its blog. Google is also working on transcoding the entire existing YouTube catalog to WebM. YouTube is spending significant resources on this conversion, showing how serious Google is about WebM.

“Given the massive size of our catalog — nearly 6 years of video is uploaded to YouTube every day — this is quite the undertaking. So far we’ve already transcoded videos that make up 99% of views on the site or nearly 30% of all videos into WebM.”

YouTube started to transcode some of its catalog right after Google open-sourced WebM last May, and WebM Product Manager John Luther said last November that the site had made 80 percent of the most popular videos available in WebM.

However, most YouTube users won’t get to see any of the clips in the new format; users have to have a browser supporting WebM and actively opt into the HTML5 trial. WebM is currently supported by Firefox, Chrome and Opera. IE users can watch WebM videos by installing an additional codec, and Apple’s Steve Jobs has made it clear he won’t support WebM at all.

The open format recently made headlines when MPEG LA opened up a call for patents to form a WebM patent pool. Google has rejected the idea that WebM is subject to patents held by other companies.

“MPEG LA, which was formed in the late 1990s, manages the licensing of more than 1,700 patents used in a high-definition video encoding standard known as H.264. The Justice Department is concerned the group’s actions may stifle competition to that dominant format, the people familiar with the matter said.”

That sentiment was echoed by Christopher “Monty” Montgomery, the mastermind behind the Ogg Theora open-source video codec, when we talked to him back in February. “MPEG LA is trying to make it illegal to ever compete with them again by sewing an entire industry field up into an impenetrable patent thicket,” he said, adding: “They’re not maneuvering based on concrete claims. They simply want competition to be illegal.”

MPEG LA disputed these claims, with a spokesperson telling us that “the provision of a joint patent license can greatly reduce the potential threat of litigation by clearing away patent thickets when they exist.”

The question is: Do they exist? The Journal quotes MPEG LA CEO Larry Horn calling the idea that WebM is patent-free “nonsense,” and Apple CEO Steve Jobs went on the record last year saying that “all video codecs are covered by patents.”

Montgomery, on the other hand, believes that any potential claims could easily be resolved by WebM developers. “Maybe something completely unexpected pops up, someone really does have a patent no one saw coming — We sidestep it, work around it, cut it out immediately,” he told me.

The bigger issue at hand is whether MPEG LA and its H.264 licensees, which include Apple, actually want to start such a cat-and-mouse game. The mere threat of a patent pool or possible patent litigation could be enough to keep people from embracing WebM, though MPEG LA denies such claims. We’ll have to wait and see whether the DOJ and other regulators believe the company.

]]>Last month, MPEG-LA, the group that collects patent royalties for the most popular digital video formats, started asking around for patents that would cover Google’s V8 video codec-a codec that Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is eager to keep patent-free. Today, MPEG-LA’s CEO Larry Horn told the WSJ that the idea that Google’s VP8 video format is patent free is “simply nonsense.” And why was Horn talking to the press in the first place? Because his company is reportedly being investigated by the Justice Department, where lawyers are considering whether Horn’s efforts to slap a patent price tag on Google’s free video technology violates antitrust laws.

Horn wouldn’t say whether his group was under investigation or not, and the Justice Department, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), and Google all declined to comment. He has portrayed the group as simply a one-stop shop for patent licenses.

It’s true that a patent-licensing group doesn’t directly compete with Google; while patent licenses can be burdensome and expensive, they’re not usually considered antitrust problems as long as all players in the industry are able to pay similar rates for licenses.

However, if antitrust regulators find out that a major Google competitor like Apple or Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is trying to sabotage Google’s open video efforts by eagerly contributing patents to an MPEG-LA pool-well, that wouldn’t look so good.

Google has said that MPEG-LA’s statements about VP8 are just aspersions without anything to them; the company is supporting open-source, royalty-free digital video and audio formats that it believes will be the best solution for innovation on the web.

The problem for Google is that the dominant digital video format is still H.264-the patented, not free format where the patents are controlled by MPEG-LA. Especially in hardware devices, from video cameras to cell phones, H.264 is by far the most supported format.

]]>Will the future of web video be free or come with a patent-licensing bill? The question has no clear answer at this point– which is why a format war over web video continues to brew. Now MPEG-LA, the patent-licensing organization that collects patent royalties from users of the most popular video formats, has issued an official call for patents that cover V8, the video codec technology that Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is making part of its WebM project to promote patent-free multimedia online.

Google has open-sourced the V8 format after it bought it last year, and any person or company can use V8 for free. By suggesting that patents are out there that actually cover V8-and saying it’s looking to gather up such patents and demand licensing fees-MPEG-LA has practically declared web-video war on Google. Google has said it will defend its project and build a coalition to support “free and open development” on the web.

One big question has to be whether tech corporations, and particularly Google rivals like Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) or Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), will answer this patent “call to arms.” Both Apple and Microsoft get money from MPEG-LA because they own patents on the popular H.264 video format-a format that Google kicked out of its own browser last month.

MPEG-LA is the licensing organization for several different video formats, including the video formats used in popular devices like DVD players. It works like this: each patent pool has a list of licensor companies, which can number in the dozens or in the hundreds. When companies make something like a DVD player or a computer that can read DVD’s, they have to make royalty payments to MPEG-LA, which then divides it up among the list of licensor companies.

One of the patent pools already administered by MPEG-LA is for H.264 video, which is the most popular codec for reading and encoding web video online. Google sparked off conflict over web video when it announced last month that it wouldn’t support H.264, because it’s patented. Instead, Google is promoting its WebM project, which promotes patent-free, open formats including V8 (video) and Vorbis (audio).

A Google spokesperson said via email that the talk about a VP8 patent pool is nothing new: “MPEG LA has alluded to a VP8 pool since WebM launched… The web succeeds with open, community-developed innovation, and the WebM Project brings the same principles to web video. The vast majority of the industry supports free and open development, and we’re in the process of forming a broad coalition of hardware and software companies who commit to not assert any IP claims against WebM. We are firmly committed to the project and establishing an open codec for HTML5 video.”

Holders of “essential patents” for the V8 patent pool have until March 18 to submit them for consideration to MPEG-LA. If a patent pool gets formed, the threat of litigation is sure to follow. MPEG-LA and any licensor companies are surely aware that Google won’t hesitate to defend its formats from patents. But if MPEG-LA can make the ultimate future of WebM appear to be in doubt, it could cause video companies faced with urgent decisions about what formats to support to veer away from WebM.

]]>Updated: Get ready for the next big patent fight: MPEG LA is officially getting ready to form a patent pool to control and license VP8, the codec at the core of Google’s WebM open source video format. MPEG LA announced its call for patents on Thursday, asking “any party that believes it has patents that are essential to the VP8 video codec specification” to submit these by March 18.

Google’s response to this? Bring it on. “The vast majority of the industry supports free and open development, and we’re in the process of forming a broad coalition of hardware and software companies who commit to not assert any IP claims against WebM,” a Google spokesperson told me today via email, adding that Google remains committed to establishing WebM as an open format for HTML5 web video.

Google released WebM as an open source video format last May. One of the main reasons behind the move was MPEG LA’s control of the popular H.264 video format. While MPEG LA is offering free H.264 licenses to web video platforms that offer their content for free, paid services, hardware makers and software developers have to pay for the use of H.264.

MPEG LA’s H.264 license is only one of a number of patent pools administered by the company. The theory behind these pools is that companies using a format like H.264 can get a license covering all related patents from MPEG LA instead of licensing it from each party individually. However, MPEG LA’s patent licensing has often been criticized, with some even calling the company greedy and corrupt.

Supporters of H.264 have long argued that WebM is also encumbered by patents. Apple CEO Steve Jobs already warned last April that patent pools may be formed against open video formats. Apple is one of the most vocal backers of H.264. The company is using it to bring video to the iPad and other iOS devices, and Jobs has been touting the combination of H.264 and HTML5 as an alternative to Flash.

So does this mean WebM is in trouble? Not necessarily. Companies like MPEG LA regularly announce calls for patents, and not all of those lead to the successful formation of a patent pool. For example, MPEG LA and others in the business of licensing patent pools unsuccessfully tried to form pools for the LTE wireless standard.

Christopher “Monty” Montgommery, the mastermind behind the Ogg Theora open-source video codec, believes that WebM developers have not much to worry about. Theora has in many ways been a precursor to WebM. He told me MPEG LA has been making threats against Theora as well as WebM for a long time, and that it’s about time for the company to “put up or shut up.”

Montgomery said that it would actually be helpful if MPEG LA finally published details about the patents that supposedly touch VP8. “The second a patent number is involved, we get to know what the claim is,” he said, adding, “Maybe something completely unexpected pops up; someone really does have a patent no one saw coming.” In that case, he said, the WebM project could simply “sidestep it, work around it, cut it out immediately.”

However, Montgomery believes it’s more likely that MPEG LA will get patents that “look superficially plausible” as opposed to any concrete challenges. “MPEG-LA is trying to make it illegal to ever compete with them again by sewing an entire industry field up into an impenetrable patent thicket,” he said, adding: “They’re not maneuvering based on concrete claims. They simply want competition to be illegal.”

Still, the escalating conflict between MPEG LA and the WebM Project could slow WebM’s adoption just when Google is making a strong push to make the format more popular. Google announced last month that its Chrome web browser won’t support H.264 anymore and instead solely use WebM for HTML5 video playback.

Update: An MPEG LA spokesperson disputed the notion that MPEG LA exercises control over video formats like H.264 in an email sent to us after this article got published. He added: “We offer to facilitate creation of licenses of convenience to address market needs, and our call for patents will help determine whether there is sufficient need to justify providing such service.”

]]>Google’s decision earlier this week to ditch support for the dominant web video codec, H.264, in its Chrome browser unleashed a fair bit of debate around the web. It sounds a bit geeky, but this brewing standards war will likely have a huge impact on the future of web video. Today, Chrome Product Manager Mike Jazayeri published a follow-up blog post going more in greater depth about the company’s reasoning. One thing comes through clearer in this post-it’s all about the patents.

First, what’s this debate all about?

» The Background. A modernized set of standards for the web’s lingua franca, HTML, is currently underway. Once it’s finished, that will be HTML5. The web’s updated language that will include a ‘video’ tag that can be read by browsers directly, eliminating the need for slower plug-ins. But there are two competing standards for what kind of video the ”video’ tag will read. One is the pay-to-play H.264 standard, which is covered by the patents of 10 different companies; anyone making hardware or paid web services has to pay up for those patents. The second is the open-source WebM standard, created with technology purchased last year by Google (NSDQ: GOOG).

As Jayazeri describes in his blog post today, the negotiations over what to use as the “baseline” codec reached an impasse. The makers of the Firefox and Opera browsers refused to support H.264, because it’s patented, while Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) refused to make their browsers not support H.264. (Apple and Microsoft, perhaps not coincidentally, are two of the 29 patent-holders getting paid by when royalties are collected for H.264 devices.)

So in this week’s announcement, Google is picking sides. And it’s upset a lot of folks who have been thrown for a loop because H.264 is already the much more prevalent standard, especially in hardware devices. (For example, practically every mobile phone and video camera is now being made with a chip that has built-in H.264 support.) But Jayazeri argues (and presumably the powers-that-be at Google believe) that the benefits of having an open and unpatented Web outweigh. openness

And the new post makes clear that the argument here is really all about the fact that H.264 is patented. Google acknowledges that right now, it has broader support than the WebM standard, but argues that the danger of a patented Web is too big to not do something about. Jayazeri writes: “To use and distribute H.264, browser and OS vendors, hardware manufacturers, and publishers who charge for content must pay significant royalties-with no guarantee the fees won’t increase in the future. To companies like Google, the license fees may not be material, but to the next great video startup and those in emerging markets these fees stifle innovation.”

So will users of Google Chrome suddenly be shut out of a lot of web video? No, but they’ll have to use a plug-in like Flash or Silverlight. And that’s the source of one of the main prongs of criticism against Google’s move-that it’s hypocritical because Google is still supporting the very proprietary and non-open Flash. But both Google and Mozilla seem to have decided they’ll have to live with Flash for now-just as Apple has-and criticizing the company for not banning all non-open software is a bit disingenuous, as CNET’s Tom Krazit points out.

With the world divided about 65-35 between Safari and Internet Explorer users in the majority and Firefox, Opera and Chrome users on the minority, this standards war raises serious a question. Is this standards war starting an unnecessary religious crusade for a particular format? Or, does the dominant H.264 format bring us all too close to the dangers of a patented, proprietary web that could stifle innovation?

Google clearly thinks the latter, and suggests that the future of the web can’t be entrusted to the companies collecting royalties from the MPEG-LA patent pool. “Our choice was to make a decision today and invest in open technology to move the platform forward, or to accept the status quo of a fragmented platform where the pace of innovation may be clouded by the interests of those collecting royalties,” writes Jayazeri.

]]>Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has essentially declared war against the web’s dominant video format, announcing in a blog post today that Chrome will phase out support for the H.264 video codec that encodes most video online. Instead, Chrome, which now controls 10 percent of the browser market worlwide, will only support two open video formats-Google’s own WebM format, which launched last year, and Theora, another open-source codec. This seems to confirm that the web’s “codec wars” are in full effect and could indicate that Google has a problem with the royalties being charged by MPEG-LA, the organization that administers the patent pool for H.264 codec.

Codecs are the programs that encode or decode any digital data stream, such as digital video. The dominant web video codec, by far, is H.264, which is a proprietary, patented format. The patents that cover H.264 are administered by MPEG-LA, a patent licensing group that collects the royalties for any devices and services that use the H.264 codec and divides it up to all the companies and organizations that own relevant patents. H.264 support is hard-wired into most video cameras and modern mobile phones, as well as devices like DVD players.

MPEG-LA only charges for hardware devices that use the format, and non-free web use. The group recently promised that the standard will remain royalty-free for web sites that don’t charge until 2015, but-as open-source advocates point out-there’s nothing to stop it from charging at that time, and it will be much more lucrative once the H.264 format is dominant online.

Of the four most popular internet browsers, only two, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Apple’s Safari, will now have built-in H.264 support. Firefox only supports the open-source Theora format, although nearly all Firefox users use Flash to watch some video.

Unsurprisingly, not everyone is happy. CNET quotes SmugMug CEO Don MacAskill, who complains that the open-source WebM format just hasn’t caught on enough for him to blow off users coming to his site who need H.264 support. MacAskill tweeted today: “Bottom line: Much more expensive to build video on the Web, and much worse user experience. And only *Adobe* wins… I want WebM. Badly. But I need time for hardware penetration to happen… This means the cheapest way to develop video on the Web is to use Flash primarily. Before, we could do HTML5 with Flash fallback.”